Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

My own personal Cloward-Piven breakdown — and request for your ideas about uniting the base

I haven’t written much in the last two days. It’s certainly not because there’s been an absence of material, both serious (just about everything) and ridiculous (“Oh, my gawd! Hillary’s going to be a grandmother!”). Instead, my problem is that there’s too much to write about. I’m overwhelmed, and all I can think of is the Cloward-Piven strategy.

While those delightful Leftists were focused solely on destroying the American economy, I’ve always seen the strategy as one that has much larger implications: if you overload the circuits of anything, the system will blow.

Five years into the Obama administration, the headlines indicate that all the chickens are suddenly coming home to roost. America and the world are balancing on the knife’s edge. The checks and balances have broken, the very same checks and balances that kept stability both at home and abroad.

We’re looking into the abyss and I have no idea what to say.

More than that, when I look at what conservatives have to offer, I’m not sanguine about our ability to walk America delicately back from the edge on which it’s poised and bring it to firm ground. For decades, conservatives have been keeping their heads down and doing the economic work that’s been channeled into filling Leftist coffers and funding Leftist policies. Now that we’re finally raising our heads from our desks, we’re shattered by the damage strewn about, but don’t have the faintest idea how to regroup . . . no, not regroup, but group in the first place.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Trevor Loudon’s proposal to have conservatives come together immediately to present a united front to appeal to all conservative bases. As you know, it appealed to me strongly. But a lot of people whom I respect (yourselves included), immediately pointed out profound flaws with the idea. Right off the bat, there were profound flaws with each of the people named (Ted Cruz’s Canadian birthplace; Rand Paul’s peculiar ideas about money and Iran, not to mention his father’s icky affiliations; Allen West’s problems while in the military, and so on). People also disliked the un-democratic smell behind preparing an entire slate without the necessity of primaries, although primaries in California and in other “open primary” blue states are officially a joke. Some people were worried that naming a full slate early would give the MSM a head-start on digging up dirt, destroying lives, and preparing campaigns. And those are just some of the problems people had with Trevor’s out-of-the-box idea for getting the base excited before the GOP vacuums up the big money to promote another almost-certain-to-lose RINO.

The one thing that everyone agreed on, though, was that there needs to be some grand strategy to unite the conservative base in 2016, or else we may as well go home now, stock up on our survivalist supplies, and wait for Armageddon.

So here’s a challenge for you, given that my circuits are fried: What grand strategy will unite the base?

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I despair for the future. I may be less than thrilled about a specific candidate, but I know that almost ANY conservative candidate is better than four more years of another lefty. By the way, for the really worried, a 4320 (1440 days) serving package of freeze dried food is on sale for a mere $6899! You can be ready for the coming apocalypse if the left wings again!

Mike Devx

Hmmm, for one person, 1440 days is about 4 years.
So, 4 years @ $6900, or 1 year @ $1725. That’s 1 month @ $144.
It might be worth it if you could stash it and forget about it for many years. Do you know the shelf life of these freeze-dried foods? How many years?

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

I wouldn’t buy that many, if I were you. Try some MREs made by civilian companies, then scale up. Generally food won’t be an issue, but fuel and power. For long storage food, the quality may be very questionable, so you should try the quality out first, see if you can stomach it.

A lot of ammo these days are expensive as heck, so if you stockpile ammo, it often times will trade for food with more value than say silver or gold.

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

You’re right that people were shattered. But not everyone was. Some people were better prepared mentally and others were just crazy strong mentally to begin with.

If people knew how many rapists and gun runners smuggling weapons were funded by Hollywood… they would never pay Hollywood again. The thing is, Hollywood uses real guns and blanks. They don’t accept imitations like cgi or airsoft guns. Hollywood also wants to ensure civilians are disarmed of their private arms. Whispher: So that ranchers in Nevada, for example, can’t resist the kill and rape squads. Also, TM, funded partially by Hollywood and taxes.

For those wondering, if you are worried about disasters, it’s a good idea to put something like this in your car and stored away so your kids can get it. Supplies are of little use if your kid can’t get to it within a day, after all. We’re only talking about natural disasters, of course, like Earth quakes and …. stuff.

Danny Lemieux

I wouldn’t despair. I am sure that the future of democracy looked very bleak toward the end of the Woodrow Wilson administration, but then came Warren Harding and Cal “the chief business of the America people is business” Coolidge. The future of free enterprise and the U.S. economy looked very bleak during the age of Roosevelt, but then came WWII, the repudiation of socialism and the Eisenhower revival. Ditto for Jimmah Carter, followed by Reagan. The only thing that I can be certain of is that we really cannot predict the future and that action-reaction will continue to define history. Everything the Progressive Left touches leads to misery and decay – people will learn their lessons and react.

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

America has a certain wealth limit at the divine bank. Every time a disaster is averted, a withdrawal is made. But eventually the bank account will go bust. The question is merely when.

http://bookwormroom.com Bookworm

The problem, Danny, is that we have to go through the misery and decay before we get to the rest on common sense. Also, in the past, American policies changed. This time around, because of the takeover of education and media, American values have changed. That’s more significant. Still, I hope your optimism is correct.

MGrambush

Ive studied the case of Allen West, and I think it is defensible. The punishment was non-judiciary and considering the Greg Buckley jr. case and the shoot down of Extortion 17, people might appreciate an officer going to extaordinary lengths to protect those serving under him. It helps, I think, that he never denied anything and accepted his punishment.

http://bookwormroom.com Bookworm

I’m with you MGrambush, but there’s no telling how terribly warped his record will become in MSM hands.

Spartacus

Unite the base… hmmm. What if the GOP leadership in the House grabs a handful of willing Republicans, joins forces with Nancy Pelosi, and rams amnesty through the House before the Republicans officially take over the Senate in January? What’s that? Not quite what you had in mind? Well, you should have been more specific…

But seriously, though, I’ll say it again: the game can indeed be changed, but it requires a game-changer. And not only is Mr. Loudon’s proposal potentially a game-changer, but it is not necessarily mutually exclusive with other game-changers. Furthermore, sometimes a little cracking of the whip can go a long way: although there may be numerous objections at the moment — and bear in mind that those with objections will be louder than those quietly thinking, “Hmm, maybe…” — should a Loudonesque slate actually form and stand firm, the Tea Party could then benefit from the same trick that the Establishment keeps using every four years: “This is it. Where else you gonna go?” Dubya benefitted greatly from early coalescence before 2000, and I don’t see why a tea-drinking slate couldn’t do the same. Ted is eligible. Rand ain’t going anywhere near Foggy Bottom. And Allen has the right idea on how to extract time-critical intel from EPW’s. Let’s do this thing.

Kathy from Kansas

The only politician I trust 99.99999…% is Sarah Palin.

bizcor

Amen to that!

jj

The freeze-dried stuff is mostly 25 – 30 years, but you don’t need to be that tricky: regular old canned food kept below 75 degrees will last almost indefinitely. Canning is a high-heat process that renders the food microbially sterile (or “inert” if you prefer) and it’ll be safe to consume any time in the next 20 years. It may be subject to some texture changes, but will be safe to eat. Two ways to go: spend a bunch to lay in the freeze-dried stuff (and hope if the time ever comes that you have steady access to a reliable water source, which really will be the problem); or just add a half dozen cans to whatever else you’re getting every time you visit the market. All the vegetables, plus solid stuff like ravioli, chicken, fish, etc. If kept dry and in the 60s you can cheerfully dig in a dosen years from now.

http://bookwormroom.com Bookworm

Good advice about the canned goods. Most canned goods, though, have “best by” dates. How seriously does one have to take those dates, jj?

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

The food becomes turning a different color and the taste is changed to some kind of bland mush, but it doesn’t become spoiled.
These aren’t pressure sealed cans, though, so their good by dates are only a few years.
It depends on how they purify the products and how stable the metal container is. Most are machine sealed using heavy aluminum from what I’ve seen. Others are stainless steel.

Mike Devx

Good info, JJ, Ymar, Book! I thought the “best by” date on such canned goods was a warning concerning spoilage. It is VERY good to know that that stuff will last for years if kept at a reasonable temperature!

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

I surmise it depends on what is actually in it. Certain taste, chemicals, and acids may deteriorate to dangerous levels past the good date. But things like canned oranges or fruit slices, seem relatively stable. Meat based soups also last awhile, for some reason due to the water.

Other more exotic soups, like combination meat and vegetable soups, may start tasting very weird. I haven’t done a research project on this, so I encourage people to do their own internet research and thinking on this matter.

Spartacus

1) Several years ago, archaeologists opened up the tomb of some emperor or other nobleman in China. Among the supplies placed in the tomb for this fellow to take with him into the afterlife was a certain amount of wheat. Out of curiosity, the archaeologists planted some of the 5000-year-old wheat, and it grew just fine!

2) Cheap bastard that I am, I finally got around to cleaning out all the excess MREs which I’d been issued 10-15 years before but hadn’t needed at the time, so just brought them home and kept them. Summary: some wet foods still OK, some wet foods scary-looking, all dry foods just fine.

You’ll go crazy eating nothing but rice, pasta, and whatever you can make with flour, but properly stored, those three inexpensive, dry, and calorific three will go a long way.

What will unite the base? How about real reform and not personality candidates with “weak” personalities. I put weak in quotation marks because if you are putting your hopes in a single man who inherits the system he can’t accomplish much. He can be gregarious and charismatic but such a person will be more comfortable grasping and trading favors then reforming and governing.
What we need to do is make a sustained attack on corrupt urban political machines right until they are completely cleaned up. We need to bring in vouchers so that there are educational alternatives far different than monopolistic expensive universities selling sweatshirts. We can say we are the anti-Occupier party denounce them, their behaviors and their eurocentric sense of entitlement and demand for socialism. We can challenge the Democrats to denounce or embrace them. This is about how America runs not how candidates measure up in the media.

http://bdroppings.blogspot.com jog267

What will unite the conservative base is to advocate policies designed to absolutely destroy the progressive base without frightening low information voters. These come to mind:

A complete end to any funding of the IRS. It must be abolished.
Tax reform which includes the end of income tax withholding and a change to the tax structure designating Nov 1 as a tax settle-up day.
Abolish ‘Administrative Law’ making the argument that Americans should not have to comply with rules/regulations that have not been explicitly authorized by Congress and signed into law by the president.
Repeal all laws and refuse to fund any program, popularity be damned, that advantage progressives in any way.
Tort reform.

Except for the third and possibly the fifth, the GOP can communicate these ideas to their base with out facing much effective flak from progressives and their media allies. These ideas are too abstract to excite left leaning low information voters while there implications are fairly obvious (and exciting) to conservatives.

bizcor

This idea in my opinion has legs.

http://bookwormroom.com Bookworm

raymondjelli and jog267, I think both of you are on track with your transformational (or do I mean reformational?) ideas. The problem is selling them. That’s why the rank and file keep latching onto “personalities.” The non-thinking members like the personality, and the thinking members hope that the personality can sell the product. Personality isn’t working, but how do we sell the product otherwise? More than that, what media do we use to disseminate those ideas, since the MSM is closed to us?

Matt_SE

The main divide in the Republican base is between the establishmentarians and the Tea Party. There is no bridging the ideological divide between those two camps, at least, not in “normal” circumstances.
There will only be unity when one approach or the other is proven false by experience.
IMO, the establishment is too close to progressivism in effect. So, the way to unite the Republican base is the same as the electorate in general: wait until everything collapses.
I don’t know what percentage belongs to the establishment (or those voters who can’t be bothered to pay attention), but it must be significant because people like Boehner and McConnell keep getting elected. So it appears that we have plenty of low-information voters even on our side.

Mike Devx

I am still on board with the Loudon proposal. I like it.

The RINO establishment caolesces early around one candidate and then uses various tricks and maneuvers to try to end the debate before the first primary vote even gets cast. One trick IS to try up the funding, and Loudon is right to point that out as a threat; and it is why he urges the favorite conservative/Tea Party candidate to announce a preferred governing slate early. I have no problem with any of this.

And like I said, some of those names would genuinely excite me! A cabinet with Sarah Palin on Energy, Ben Carson on HHS, John Bolton on State… I am already practically wiggling in my chair with happiness. And while some here practically view Rand Paul as an anti-Christ, I like him in a purely economic position. That 15-20% of the conservative electorate that he keeps wildly enthused year-in, year-out should not be discounted.

Secretary of Defense is a tough nut to crack though.

bizcor

I have had the distinct opportunity over the last few months to meet and speak with many of the people we see as potential 2016 presidential candidates.
Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, John Bolton, Bobby Jindal, Peter King, Allen West, Marco Rubio and a women that you should all pay attention to, Carly Fiorina. Californian’s I am certain already know of Ms. Fiorina. This women has vision, executive experience and the ability to turn California around but alas California didn’t seem to want a turn around. The stupid, voted against her. While she spoke I was riveted. She is right as rain. The dinner she spoke at I found myself sitting with voting members to the RNC. Not only did we nod in agreement we at what she said many times we all stood and applauded her during her speech. This preface is not to impress but to validated what I am about to say.
1.Carly Fiorina may be the person to unite the base. She is a force to be reckoned with.
2.The Tea Party is us and everyone knows it. We outnumber the establishment of both parties a million(s) to one. It is why they try so hard to discredit the “Tea Party”. The same reason they discredit Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul. They are scared to death we will rise up to take the country back from the edge. The afore mentioned people aren’t afraid of the Tea Party. No, they welcome us as we are exactly the millions who they want in their base and on the ground campaigning for them. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul were elected by the Tea Party base. The entire Establishment knew from the moment that Sarah Palin spoke at the RNC convention in 2008 that she needed to be quashed. They have managed to taint this wonderful woman to the point that she has little chance of every being president but she is a force because her influence got Cruz elected against all odds. She was behind Marco Rubio who also beat the odds.
Steve Hayes from the “Weekly Standard” asked me the other night who I thought would be the nominee in 2016. I said from today’s stand point either Ted Cruz or Rand Paul. It is a long way from that day. We may be in bunkers by then.
My point support the Tea Party backed candidates. I think they can win and will do a lot to pull us back from the edge.
That said, 2014 is the first goal. In NH we have the ability to change one senate seat and two congressional seats. Great candidates in all races. Look to your local races to see how you can help.
“Dog Catcher.” Do not forget to vote for your local people. These are the people you can speak to one on one. I say dog catcher but I mean selectmen, city councilors, county commissioners, sheriffs, school board, (especially school board, Can you say Common Core?) etc. These are the people who affect your local situations. You can attend these meetings and speak up! It is what was done in the early days of this country and should be done today. Today we simply elect people and go back to bed, Meanwhile they are stealing our country away. Get out of bed. Pay attention! I know I am preaching to the choir here. it is what we must do.
People always say, “Geez what can I do.” I say get your butts involved. If you can’t run support those who are running. Imagine if every county across the country said, “No!” to Obamacare, and Common Core! Talked to my county’s sherriff the other day. When I asked him about gun confiscation he said he would not order it. How about all sheriffs across the country said nope not gonna do it. That’s how we undo the worry about 2nd amendment. Elect sheriffs who won’t order it. The “Big Cities” law enforcement people may try but the big cities are small in comparison to the country.
So, we can all go ahead respond to a blog from anonymous windows or we can take a stand and get it back.
I get it, most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence lost everything. Their wealth, their families, and in many cases their lives. Look it up. I know we don’t want top to lose that but, think about it we lose so much more if we don’t stand. That my friends is the crux of the situation. We all have our opinions and we are happy to express then from the realm of anonymity but, really we have to get out there and do it. Boots on the ground.
Book you asked my opinion now you have it.

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

I remember seeing Fiorina on Fox News back when the board fired her from HP.

The context was that people were against her, but nobody could say why. It was suggested that she was unsatisfactory, but her charisma shown quite well on tv.

Now a days, I suspect political reasons were why they wanted to get rid of her. After all, that’s California. The very definition of mind control.